Meet the Leeds medic who helped to save lives in Gaza with UK-Med charity

Leeds medic Mark Shaw has been out to Gaza to help with charity UK-Med’s life-saving work in the war zone. He talks about what he saw in the Middle East.

On returning home from treating children with appalling injuries in Gaza, Yorkshire medic and grandfather Mark Shaw gave his loved ones extra big hugs. The operating department practitioner has opened up about his life-saving work with frontline medical charity UK-Med as part of the Government’s humanitarian response to the Israel-Palestine crisis.

York-born Mark, 54, supported staff at Al Aqsa hospital and played a key role in establishing and developing a UK emergency field hospital at Al Mawasi to help civilians caught up in the conflict.

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The grandad-of-four from Leeds admitted: “What I’ve seen definitely makes you hug the grandchildren that little bit tighter, that is for sure.

Palestinians evacuate a neighbourhood in Gaza City during Israeli airstrikes on October 11, 2023. Credit: AFP via Getty ImagesPalestinians evacuate a neighbourhood in Gaza City during Israeli airstrikes on October 11, 2023. Credit: AFP via Getty Images
Palestinians evacuate a neighbourhood in Gaza City during Israeli airstrikes on October 11, 2023. Credit: AFP via Getty Images

“It’s probably the busiest I’ve ever been in my life and seeing children with life changing injuries needing lots of surgery, that’s the hardest thing to stomach.

“The toughest cases are always children - and we were dealing with a non-stop conveyor belt of amputations, burns, bone fractures and things that are going to leave long-term scarring.

“As a grandparent, you get in a one-year-old baby and you pick him up and you hold him like it’s your grandson. The big thing you are thinking is that but for an accident of birth, these could be my loved ones.

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“The Palestinian medics loved that because you might be from a different country, but everyone has the same feelings. We are all human.”

Mark Shaw in Gaza.Mark Shaw in Gaza.
Mark Shaw in Gaza.

The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry says that more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed since the October 7 attack – leaving around 1,200 people dead and seizing some 251 hostages, according to Israeli numbers – triggered the latest war in a decades-long dispute nearly a year ago.

The Ministry does not distinguish between fighters and civilians in its count but says a little over half of those killed were women and children.

Israel says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence, according to the Press Association.

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The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) says that the UK “continues to play a leadership role in trying to alleviate the suffering by calling for much more aid to enter Gaza”.

UK-Med workers in emergency field hospitals in Gaza.UK-Med workers in emergency field hospitals in Gaza.
UK-Med workers in emergency field hospitals in Gaza.

On his first Middle East visit last month, new Foreign Secretary David Lammy announced a further £5.5million this year to Manchester-based UK-Med to fund their life-saving work in Gaza.

The UK has also lifted the pause on funding to the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) - releasing £21 million to supply emergency food, shelter and other support for three million people, as well as its wider work supporting six million Palestinian refugees across the region.

Development Minister Anneliese Dodds also recently announced a £6million package for UNICEF to help tens of thousands of Gazans access food and water, as well as health, education and wellbeing services.

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UK aid pays for medical volunteers such as Mark’s regular roles to be backfilled to ensure the NHS is not impacted.

UK-Med workers in emergency field hospitals in Gaza.UK-Med workers in emergency field hospitals in Gaza.
UK-Med workers in emergency field hospitals in Gaza.

Former Army medic Mark – who works for Spire Healthcare at Methley Park Hospital, near Leeds – was determined to go to Gaza to help as the humanitarian crisis unfolded.

The divorced father-of-three said: “My three kids are used to me going to dangerous places. I say ‘used to it’, but they accept it more than anything else I think.

“I volunteered to go out with UK-Med to Ukraine in 2022 and I had an honest conversation with my kids about going to Gaza. I said, ‘Look, if anyone doesn’t want me to go, I won’t go’.

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"They just said, ‘If that’s what you want to do then we’ll go with what you decide’.

“If one of them had said ‘no’, I wouldn’t have gone, but it felt like an obligation to me, really.

"If it was our families that were being affected, we’d want somebody to come and help. That’;s the reason why I went out. Simple as that.

“Fortunately, my grandkids are all under six so don’t watch the news.

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"As far as they were concerned, grandad was just going on a holiday to help people.”

Mark gave a dramatic description of what life is like in Gaza.

“I came across some horrendous injuries in Afghanistan as an army medic but it was the tempo in Gaza that was just relentless.

“There were a lot of gunshot injuries, a lot of blast injuries, stabbings, amputations, the works.

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"A lot of the cases I was involved with were what we call ‘return to theatres’, which is maybe a few days after they’ve had major life-saving surgery, we then give the wounds a good clean out, we look at doing skin grafts and closing the holes and stuff.

“You were aware of some big bangs and explosions.

"There were certainly a fair few window shakers so you were aware of what was going on, but the focus was on the job. At those moments you are just thinking ‘I’m glad that wasn’t closer’.”

UK-Med is now running two FCDO-funded field hospitals – based in Al Mawasi and Deir El Balah – which have treated more than 100,000 patients in Gaza so far.

Mark paid tribute to the Palestinian medics he worked with, and he said: “Returning to the NHS, I have any bit of equipment and medication I need at the drop of a hat and it makes me really sad that the excellent Palestinian medics I worked with often don’t have the most basic resources through no fault of their own.

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“A lot of them lived in refugee camps. One nurse used to say to me when we were unpacking boxes, ‘Mark, can you keep the cardboard for me’. I said, ‘Why?’ and she goes, ‘I use that to make fire to cook with?’.

"No matter how hard it gets, they keep coming into the hospital to help others.

“The experience and expertise I’ve picked up working in Gaza has undoubtedly made me a better medic and person.”

Mark added: “I hope that one day my grandkids can look back and be really proud of what I did and realise that helping others is important.”​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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